Tag Archive | "censorship"

Fired from a St-Hubert restaurant for having breastfed her 43 years old son!

The Journal de Mourreal is a satire newspaper created in the summer of 2012 and which has experienced a tremendous viral ascension to the top. At first only present on Facebook, it was then available in web in the autumn of 2013.

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Thank you to credit the site if you use the information acquired in this article. A link would be really appreciated. Article in progress, thank you for coming back later for more information! French version available here: C’est quoi le deal avec le Journal de Mourreal? Jdemou = Journal de Mourreal
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I just heard recently about the news of the lawsuit involving Quebecor and the Journal of Mourreal, the website of our friend Janick. This is somewhat surprising. I always refrained to talk about this at all in respect to everyone, but since the news will go around the world, I thought that I could do it. I can speak knowingly, because one of the editors was a close friend of mine.

Nothing I say here on my site will harm any of the parties, because this is already public informations, (I just put the pieces in place), and I have no doubt that Quebecor’s lawyers are competents a hundred times more than I am on the subject, they certainly do not count on what I say in this article to build their “case”. I speak also of the phenomenon of the website “fake news”.

I was supposed to write for the newspaper, but because of a little misunderstanding that did not ultimately happen. I would have liked to, because the Journal de Mourréal is a troll website and for that I would have liked to contribute. One of the most controversial articles they published was the piece on Guy Turcotte had been granted a license to open a daycare from Quebec, a false news that quite enabled a lot of butthurt from users.

First, Jdemou’s jokes are hilarious although they may be somewhat offensive sometimes, for people not suspecting what the real nature of the site is. On the Internet, everything is based on your understanding of what is true or not for you. The fact that the perception is blurred is an incredible source of amusement and this in many ways.

The hilarity of the newspaper is based on the unclear jokes. Some people believe these news, although idiotically unreal and making no sense, are actually true. Lulz ensues. Users publish indignated or corroborating comments because they believe that the article is true. People who know that this is not true laugh at the joke and at users who believe they do good.

People believe what they will read on a website because “it is on a website, it must be serious”. People do not understand the technology of a website and believe that therefore, since the technology is mysterious, so by extension credible, the newsworthy information present in the content must also be.

As evidenced by several elements online, such as “memes” for example, those little fun images containing a more or less subtle joke, Internet culture is the science of what you know and what you do not know (the information science kinda). The more you go on sites frequented by heavy internet users, the more you need to know internet culture because communication become more subtle and require more experience in accumulating information.

But all this does not really concern the Jdemou: after more than 5 minutes on the site, it is obvious for most people the website is actually a surprising joke, not the real Journal de Montreal. At worst it’s annoying. Most of the time it’s a good round of laughter.

Several other false papers like that exploit this flaw in the human mind (they swarm on the web), as the Onion in English or French site the Gorafi. I think these sites have understood what was coming because they were careful to distance themselves from this technique to exploit the blurring between true and false. You do not see many articles involving real people and they make sure to render fairly obvious that the site is actually a satire, not to be taken seriously.

There is even the large website Gawker that wrote about it, a website that ironically will suffer the fate the Journal of Montreal wants to inflict to the Jdemou. The article’s title is “The Antiviral Guide to the Worst hoaxers and Liars on Facebook.”

I think people of Gawker’s staff were frustrated and jealous of the popularity of the Jdemou and similar sites because I’m pretty sure they changed the original title of their piece, which was to my memory: “Fake news, the best of the worst “. Anyway Gawker is scheduled to close soon and it will be well done for their ugly mugs. Even though they will still come back subsequently, unfortunately. Disgression complete, let’s return to the “beef” section.

I do not know if they are still available but here are the popular early posts that helped launch the newspaper. The first article is the first to have been successful. The other titles are from memory, because I cannot find the Facebook posts and those on the website.

On several occasions, the newspaper created incidents of people actually believing the news and taking actions in real life, such as phone calls or emails requesting corroboration of the facts. All of this to official bodies.

Literally several dozen serious publications have been caught by the Journal of Mourréal and relayed and wrote articles about false news they read in the amateur newspaper. The latest big name to have been trapped: Anne Hidalgo, none other that the city of Paris’ mayor.

Read these absolutely hilarious tweets:

The real goal of the newspaper’s name is to make fun of the city of Montreal. Jdemou didn’t want to laugh at the real newspaper as such, but of Montreal through a “real” newspaper, the Journal de Mourréal. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that, it is still possible to kindly make fun of a city or a country. The content published on the Jdemou are sometimes way less controversial and shocking that some of the radio broadcast in the National Capital, that the Metropolitan area likes to call “trash radio”.

I suspected that something was going on when I noticed that the real newspaper had made a redesign of its logo in 2015. I saw this as an “acknowledgment” from Quebecor they knew the little newspaper brother existed.

Since the Jdemou saw his web popularity skyrockets in Google ranking and on Facebook, of course it was inevitable that the bigwigs of the real Journal of Montreal would notice this little phenomenon.

The Liberal Party even wanted to ride the popularity wave by inspiring their slogan from the small newspaper’s slogan “the newspaper that deals with real issues” in the provincial election of April 2014.

Look in front and in the background of this photo: (Together, we deal we real issues)

The conclusion

I had doubts Quebecor was observing the site since it opened and they have been preparing this for a long time. Not a long time the newspaper celebrated its fourth anniversary.

They waited for the right time to commence proceedings in the summer when people are on vacation, to avoid attracting people’s attention and thus deplete the newspaper’s sympathy capital.

The newspaper’s website is a beloved place, it seems that the campaign against Jdemou is turning somewhat against Quebecor, at least right now on social networks.

Janick is a good person, he didnt want to harm anyone, but it was obvious that the real newspaper would not watch the train passes by for much longer. I think both parties should cut a deal and avoid the courts. But hey, that’s just my opinion.